Data Backup: Ignore at your own Peril

by Marc Watley on December 6, 2010

About a year ago, I was the unfortunate victim of a robbery.  At gunpoint.  Right…no fun at all.  Anyhow, in addition to my wallet, the idiot-with-gun also got my laptop. In an instant, I’d acutely learned the importance of backing up one’s data.

Now truth be told, it could have been much worse insofar as losing laptop data. I’ve used a BlackBerry for years, and so what I’d argue was the most important data on my laptop – contacts, notes (to this day I take all meeting notes via BlackBerry), email, and calendar – was still intact locally on my BlackBerry (which I thankfully kept) and also remotely on my corporate Exchange server.  What was lost however, were scores of other notes, business plans, presentation decks, whitepaper drafts, spreadsheet exercises, some music (sigh) – gone forever in the flash of a second.  I will say that I have benefited from the misfortune – I’ve since used an online backup service – Dropbox – to ensure safe, recoverable storage of everything on my laptop. (This has been a life saver and a service which I can’t recommend enough.)  Also, it was a good excuse to finally make the switch from PC to Mac.  Happiness.

Anyhow, two Captain Obvious lessons learned from this experience:

  1. Backup is CRITICAL
  2. Anything can happen at any time

These axioms ring even truer for businesses – of all types and sizes – who are increasingly more connected to their customers and suppliers through a plethora of systems and applications. Whether your shop is a five-location dentist practice or a multibillion-dollar technology firm, efficient backup (along with a well-planned recovery strategy) is absolutely key to staying in business.  If you’re reading this thinking, ‘yeah but nothing will happen to me/my business’, I gently refer you to my opening paragraph and also to #2 above.  Several options exist – for personal use, Small/Medium Businesses, and enterprise alike.

A few suggestions:

  • Dropbox.  Services such as Dropbox are highly recommended for personal files (good if you need to occasionally share files with others as well).  Simple to use (auto-synchronizes your files between local and online) and runs $9.99 per month (or $99 per year) for 50GB of storage space.  Learn more at http://www.dropbox.com/features.
  • Servosity. Servosity provides an agentless, on-demand backup solution suited particularly well for SMB and mid-market enterprise shops. Tape libraries are still in widespread use within datacenters today, and Servosity  provides an efficient alternative to this.  Data is compressed and encrypted before being mirrored to Servosity’s Data Vault.  Backups can be managed by OS or application, scheduled, and restored (downloaded) via secure web browser.  (Disclosure: The company I work for, Datacenter Trust, currently includes Servosity in their services portfolio.)  Learn more at http://www.servosity.com.
  • nScaled.  For enterprise shops, nScaled provides a unique approach to backup and recovery: continuous on-premise data protection, offsite backup, and remote failover. Data is continually stored both within your datacenter as well as at a remote highly-available facility.  Using a secure web interface, data can be recovered and restored either on-premise or from the remote location within 15 minutes or less.  Supported server platforms include Windows, Linux, and IBM AIX.  (Disclosure: The company I work for, Datacenter Trust, currently includes nScaled in their services portfolio.)  Learn more at http://www.nscaled.com.

Other solutions to check out include Carbonite, CommVault’s Simpana, and the recently-launched Whitewater appliance by Riverbed Technology. Whether your need is personal or business, there are many options available for synchronizing, retaining, and restoring your data. This is a must-do, as continuous access to personal and work data becomes increasingly important.  As Foghorn Leghorn would say, pay attention when I’m talkin’ to ya!  Don’t let some nutball with a gun or, say, mother nature with an earthquake, teach you a lesson the hard way about keeping ALL of your data continuously backed up and quickly recoverable!

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